Printing and the iPad: An exercise in frustration

Q: I bought an iPad 1 for my wife a year ago Christmas. At the time of purchase I had no idea that this "great device" lacked the ability to print. A senior level Apple Support Tech directed me to Ecamm and their Printopia app. I opted to skip the demo process and purchase their product outright, as demos sometimes exclude certain necessities. And it was only $20.

After two weeks of back-and-forth emails to their tech support group, Ecamm finally acknowledged that I had to have an Apple Mac system to first download their product prior to loading it over to the IPad 1.

Unbelievable! Don't these kids read their emails? In my initial email to them, I clearly laid out that I was not using a wireless printer; that the printer was hard-wired to my router; that I wanted to print via my router; that my home Wi-Fi setup was very vanilla. Friends with all walks of systems (Windows/Apple) and phones had zero problems with Internet access and or printing, provided their laptop (Windows/Apple) had a printing icon.

Eric, any ideas? Or do I simply pitch our first-ever Apple experience? Again, all I'm trying to do is print from our iPad 1 to our printer, which is hard-wired to a Linksys router. Though it is a wireless printer, none of the high-priced techies I used and/or those from (manufacturers support) could get the wireless feature to work, so I gave up and simply hard-wired it directly to the router. Sometimes simple is best!

Eric, sure appreciate any help!

—Peter

A: The iPad doesn't have built-in software to talk to printers. But it does have software that lets it talk to a Mac laptop. So to print from an iPad, it first has to (wirelessly) ask the Mac, "Would you mind telling the printer to print this document for me?" If the Mac has been set up properly to hear the iPad, it will print out the document, because the Mac does have built-in software to talk to printers. That's why your friends with their Macs can print out, but your iPad, by itself, cannot.

Apple could have built in software to talk to printers, but that would have taken up a lot of room on the iPad's flash drive, room that's probably better spent holding apps, music, video and other more interesting stuff.

So if printing from your iPad is essential for you, you'll need a computer. But before you give it away, open the App store icon and search for "free" apps to download to your iPad. You might find some interesting, compelling photos, news, videos, sketch pads and so much more.

I know it's of no consolation to you, but the iPad is not designed to replace a PC, much like a microwave oven can never replace a conventional oven. But it's quite a neat device, although, yeah, printing is one thing it cannot do by itself.

If you're going to sell, you can get $140 to $150 for a first-edition iPad in good condition through sites such as buymytronics.com and gazelle.com.

Have a question about your computer, cellphone, camera or any gadget? Let us know! E-mail Eric Gwinn at egwinn@tribune.com, and you could be featured in an upcoming Gadget Q&A column.

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